Many people consider Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum the Coke and Pepsi of crypto. Yes, they are No. 1 and No. 2 in terms of total market cap and public notoriety. But when you dive into the details, you’ll find that these 2 concepts actually serve completely different purposes. It might actually be more accurate to make a Coke versus apple juice comparison when talking about these 2 seminal platforms.
Learning the differences between Bitcoin and Ethereum will lead you down a much deeper path of technological advancement and where humans are going as a culture. You don’t have to fully understand blockchain (the fundamental tech behind crypto), Bitcoin, Ethereum or dApps to know that we are on the verge of something special. Let’s take a look at what makes these projects similar, different and ultimately great.
MAIN TALEAWAYS; BITCOIN VS ETHEREUM:
1,Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency; Ethereum is a platform.
2,Bitcoin transactions are primarily monetary; Ethereum transactions may be executable code.
3,Transactions are much faster on the Ethereum network than on Bitcoin’s.
4,Bitcoin is primarily a store of value and medium of exchange; Ethereum is not.
5,Ethereum was created as a complement to Bitcoin but ended up as competition.
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM:
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized and do not issue stores of value through a central authority. They are both built on distributed ledger blockchain, which is ideally tamper-proof (tech experts with outrageously expensive gear can work around platform protections).
If you are working within an established, reputable crypto trading platform, you can likely trade both Bitcoin and Ether. Both currencies are so popular that they are often singled out for use in fiat-crypto exchanges to the exclusion of smaller coins.